So, it's no secret that the Linux desktop - at least, the GNOME-side of things - is a bit in a state of disarray. Unity hasn't exactly gone down well with a lot of people, and GNOME 3, too, hasn't been met with universal praise. So, what to do? Linux Mint, currently one of the most popular Linux distributions out there, thinks they are on to the solution with their latest release, Linux Mint 12.

I'm a big time KDE fan. I never liked the "treat your users like idiots" mantra that GNOME planners seemed to have. However, I feel the pain that GNOME users are going through right now. When KDE 4.0 came out it was buggy as hell. I stuck with KDE 3.x as long as I could and then switched to GNOME once KDE 3.x started to lose support. It wasn't until KDE 4.3 that I went back. KDE 4.6 is awesome and just as stable as KDE 3.x was. GNOME 3.x is new and going through it's growing pains right now. GNOME users need to keep hammering the developers to get something palatable to them. I think Mint 12's approach is great. Hopefully some of their ideas will be adopted by the GNOME team and developed further.